Media Roundup — February 20, 2015

Another witness, Carrie Ann Lucas, who is wheelchair bound, said if the measure became law, “people will die needlessly,” She said it would give insurance companies the option to consider death by a doctor’s assistance a cheaper option for a patient than medical care.

From her motorized wheelchair, Carrie Ann Lucas of Windsor cited the high cost of treatment for illnesses such as hers, a form of muscular dystrophy that would be terminal within hours if she lost the use of the ventilator.

If insurance companies choose not to pay for expensive medical equipment or treatments, patients could be coaxed into a “much cheaper lethal prescription,” she said.

“Webster defines suicide as the action of killing one’s self intentionally, and that’s what this is,” said Lucas, the executive director of the Center for Rights of Parents with Disabilities.